


Nothing Left Looked On

by Goodluckdetective (scorpiontales)



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-09
Packaged: 2018-06-07 06:57:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6792172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiontales/pseuds/Goodluckdetective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carolina after Charon, a bar and dealing with those left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing Left Looked On

The bartender reminds Carolina of her mother.

 

A lot of people do that, remind her of her mother. It’s not a physical thing, though straight blonde hair does occasionally strike a second glance from her when she’s feeling particularly nostalgic. No, what reminds her of her mother are gestures from other people. Emotional cues. A man smiling just the right way when the sun rises. A woman tucking a strand of hair behind her ear while curling her pointer finger. The way this bartender took one look at her and his eyes softened, brows crinkling.

 

“On the house, kid,” he’d said. “Heard it’s been rough for you folks.”

 

He’s not wrong, and while Carolina wants to object to being called a kid by someone younger than her, she doesn’t turn down the free glass of whisky when he pushes it across the counter. It’s a small bar, more of a shack really in the new Republic base, but it has booze and that’s what matters. Given the bartenders scars, she thinks he’s likely part of the army too, or was at some point, perhaps forced to retire sometime during the conflict. He has a kindness to him that reminds her of back home. Dallas. Southern Hospitality, her father called it. To be honest, the attitude her father spoke of never reminded Carolina of the South. That label had long been transfixed to her mom. The people she met who carried the traits of her Carolina could remember. 

 

Texas had never reminded Carolina of her mother.

 

Carolina takes a drink. The taste is strong, she likes it that way and she leans forward in her chair. The news is playing, it has non-stop since everything settled down, and she looks at the headlines as they pass the screen. Hargrove still at large. Captain Grif out of hospital. Locus missing. General Kimball to give press conference. 

 

There is no news about Epsilon. Nothing about the data fragments he left behind. It’s understandable; the information is highly classified.

 

Carolina seethes anyway. Tries her best not to dig into the nice bar that is carved in names. Classified means Epsilon will have no funeral. No remembrance. No name on the monument they will eventually build for all those lost.

 

York has his name on a monument, she knows, his real name, the one he told her long ago when they felt like regulations couldn’t touch them. He’d whispered it in the dark, like it was the greatest secret he’d ever told, and when the words had time to sink in, she had snickered.

 

“ _Carter Wilson?_ ”

 

“It’s such a pretty boy name, isn’t it,” his eyes, back when they were both unscarred, twinkled. “I think it’s perfect for my dazzling looks, but it’s sadly not a state-”

 

Carolina had promptly responded by throwing a pillow in his face. Five minutes later, she’d told him her own name, just the first one, for the color of her eyes were enough to tell him the last. Back there in the darkness it didn’t feel like her’s at the time. Like Freelancer had stripped that name away.

 

She was lucky to lose only a name in retrospect. Some had lost lives. Wash had lost memories. Weeks ago, when they’d been talking about going back home, after all this was over, he’d stalled on where he was born. What schools he went to. And his last name.

 

“I think it started with an F-” He’d whispered, like he was ashamed of the information he could no longer recall. “I liked it, from what I remember. Wasn’t embarrassing or anything. I’ve tried to remember it a dozen times, but I can’t ever get past the first vowel.”

 

“Didn’t they have it on your uniform in prison?”

 

Wash smiles at her, bitterness sharper than any knife he’s ever used. “The name Agent Washington was the only one that mattered to them.”

 

Her  mother has her name on such a monument, Carolina remembers, thinking back to her original line of thought. Carolina visited it a few times when she was home, putting down her mother’s favorite flowers.  Her father does not. 

 

Carolina sometimes wonders if her name will be on a monument, someday.

 

She lets out a deep breath, dispelling the thought. They won. Now is not the time to be morbid. They won, and her friends are alive, her family is alive, and she’ll be able to tease them for years to come. She’ll be able to go to their weddings (if they have any), she’ll be able to see them have kids (God have mercy on the universe if they do), she’ll be able to ruffle Wash’s hair on the mornings it sticks up at an odd angle and watch his brows crease just like they used to when he was a rookie.

 

She will not be able to listen to Epsilon’s comments on any of these events. She is the last Church now who is capable of still speaking. It’s a heavy weight, that legacy. Those words unspoken. Those she’s lost have always had so many words they never got a chance to use. 

 

Carolina reaches for her glass and takes a long sip, not minding the burn. When she puts the glass back down, she looks at the names there in the wood, the carvings she’d only glanced at. She looks up at the bartender and raises an eyebrow. He shrugs.

 

“Names of those who died. Boys couldn’t always bring back bodies, not with what ammo they were carrying, and well, we had to mark em’ someplace. Bar seem suitable.”

 

Carolina stares at him. “Suitable?”

 

The bartender reaches forward and brushes his hand across the names. They seem newer and as Carolina looks around the bar she notices they’re everywhere, from the floorboards, to the ceiling, to the walls. A canvas of those lost. “We wanted em’ somewhere where people would have to see them. Have to be reminded. Only place everyone ends up is the bar and medical. And medical doesn’t have the space.” He takes his hand off the bar. “They used to be just the walls but it kept coming and then well-” he runs his hand through his hair. “People put up a fuss about them getting stepped on, but it was that or nothing.”

 

Carolina looks at the names for a long moment. Thinks of the stone memorials back home, the ones she will likely never visit again, the memorial of data files that Epsilon will be forced to remain to. She looks up at the bartender.

 

“Got a knife? And a free space?”

 

He already has a pocket knife out and points to the edge of the bar. “Go ahead.”

 

She picks up the knife and heads over, leaving her drink behind. The space left is tiny, not much, but she could fit in a few names if she tried and used smaller handwriting. The first comes easy.

 

_ Alison Church. _

 

The second is harder.

 

_ Leonard Church. _

 

The third she hesitates on for minutes before writing it down, trying to keep her hand from shaking. 

 

_ Carter “York” Wilson. _

 

The last, she can’t hide the tears.

 

_ Epsilon Church. _

 

“Thanks,” she says, pushing the knife back over to the bartender. He’s moved her drink over next to her and she chugs the entire thing if only to make the tears look like they’re from the whiskey’s burn. “I mean it.” She looks around. “Mind if I look around? At the names?”

 

“If you try to read them all you’ll be here all night.”

 

Carolina just shrugs, running her fingers over the names she’s just carved. “Someone has to.”

 

By morning, with tired eyes, she has read the bar, the floor, the ceiling and all four walls.

  
It still doesn’t feel like enough.  


End file.
